and i am available for any further question. president fong: public comment, i have a stack of cards here. sorry. project sponsor. >> good afternoon, members of the commission, director rahaim. my name is larry boehner -- badner, and i represent fresh and easy markets in their application for a formal retail use. we have here fresh and easy representative scott whitney, who will talk about the specific site in the commitments they have made. he will talk about the corporation and commitments that are making to the site. i believe this is the first time

the commission has seen fresh and easy. briefly, i will tell you i think you know much about it. the program is simple, fresh, and wholesome food at low prices. they have their own brand in the neighborhood of national brands. they have no artificial flavors or colors, no high fructose corn syrup -- say that 10 times faster. but also her freshly prepared ready-to-go meals. as the planner correcting noted, we are here for a formal retail use. there are external issues that are relevant, but external. fresh and easy will occupy 2/3 of the site that previously bell and delano's occupied. it is smaller than those two. delano got to within one of being a formal retell. they were a local chain, but

they had the same effects that a formula retail would. the occupant of the site until the mid 2000's had more than 11 sites. delano had up to 11, one less than the formula retail trigger. this will not change the character of the neighborhood or the individual district, north of the mission or 24th street. this has been historically a chain store formula retail site. it will maintain the historical number of formula retail uses in the district. furthermore, the city has recognized the loss of gross restores as a major issue in san francisco. -- the loss of grocery stores as a major issue in san francisco. this will occupy eight vacant storefront, help the surrounding neighborhood by eliminating a

vacancy, and improve, frankly, what is a sort of outdated store. it will look up to date with greening, sidewalk treatment, etc. with that, i will turn it over to scott whitney to talk about specific features of the store. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is scott whitney of fresh and easy markets. i appreciate your time today. when we came to san francisco, the first thing we did was look for locations we felt were underserved and would benefit from an additional grocery store. under those particular requirements that we were seeking, we felt it would be a good fit for us.

to date, through our process, we have had in excess of 15 meetings locally with a variety of residence, organizations, schools, businesses. we hired five people to visit locally door-to-door to spread the word of what we were trying to do, and understand the concerns and issues within the community. we had over 213 people participate in our community planning process. and from there what we did is developed the platform to build upon for this particular location. what we found was a variety of needs the community wanted to see. bicycle parking was one in particular the was a large need within the community. many people either walk or use bicycles for transportation. we have incorporated in excess of 30 parking facilities for

bicycle travelers. in addition to that, because our store is a fresh model, we have sharper date codes and most grocery stores. it is not because the products go out of code, but because we want to keep the french model in the store. we want to work with local partners. we have had discussions to work with a food bomb -- a food bank. from a construction perspective, one of the things we seek to do, if we get to the point where we are ready to go to construction -- we are going to work locally and hire locally, and go out to bid to all facets in the construction community, union included. we have set a goal to hire locally. we want to hire 100% in local

from the mission. we are a neighborhood market. neighborhood means hiring locally to us. the other thing we addressed was the parking lot. currently, it is in a poor state of appearance today. we are going to go through and enhance it with a variety of factors. additional landscaping. we are going to incorporate murals to further benefit and integrate within the community. we are working with presida eyes to take the existing merrill on the former -- mural on the former delano location and relocate it. in addition, there is a fence that is in a state of disrepair. we plan to take that and enhance it and put up a split face concrete block wall. rather than having a wall there,

we are going to incorporate some mural opportunities, as well as cleaning and landscape opportunities to make a living wall, as well as prepare it as a display piece for the community. trees. again, there are not a lot of trees in the mission district. we feel enhancing the site with additional trees and green scaping is a huge party, and the neighborhood said they want to see that as well. we are working that into the plan. there has been some concern raised around us being a serious competitor. at the end of the day, we are not trying to compete with the local merchants. we are trying to enhance the offering. we will not be selling products such as yucca. security was another concern an issue, not something we will be addressing and focusing on, to

make this a secure and safe place for people to shop. cars are another issue that was raised. we want to see if we can buy a car shares for the community. i know larry spoke of the size of our store. we do not need to take the whole space. we are taking roughly 2/3 of it. we have created a sublet space. we have had great discussions and are working through a letter of intent with mission neighborhood centers as a potential adjoining tenant, which we are really excited about and hopefully we can bring to fruition. with that said, we would also like to work with the local business to have vendor workshops to understand there are products and services they may be able to incorporate. we can see if that is a possibility. in a nutshell, this is kind of

the property side of where we have been and what we have tried to accomplish. unless you have questions, i will turn it over to my counterpart, robert howard, and she will discuss specific issues related to us as a business. president fong: thank you. >> i am robin howard. thank you for having us today. i want to give you a little background on the company, and possibly clear up some misinformation that has been circulated about our company. we have been in business for only four years. we still consider ourselves kind of a startup. we have opened 191 stores. the majority of those are in california, three of them here in san francisco. the the second and clement, third and carol, and the bayview. we are a different kind of

grocer. we are smaller. like he said, it is basically a 10,000 square foot sales floor. what really makes us unique is fresh and easy products. no artificial colors or fibers. no high fructose corn syrup. the trans fats. preservatives only when necessary. we're trying to give wholesome food to everyone in every type of neighborhood. that is one of our values going into every neighborhood, especially if it is underserved, and trying to fill that need. our culture is also a little bit different. one of our values is having fun at work. being able to build the culture from the ground up, we were able to make our own culture. have fun at work. for your best self. green t-shirts. we have these great meetings where people can dress up for

st. patrick's day. if you do not bring your best stuff to work, you are not going to serve the customer well. that being said, we hire locally. if you are from the neighborhood, you know the neighborhood. you're going to give the best service. that is going to work best for everyone. on the issue of jobs, we do hire locally. our goal is always to hire 100% local. that is not always possible. however, we believe we can reach that goal in the mission of 100%. we would like to take some employees and train them and one of our existing stores, so that when the store is ready to open, they can come in as managers and team leads, and we can get closer to the 100% goal. everyone must work enough hours so they are entitled to full benefits. everyone that works for us, part-time or full-time, are entitled to full health care,

with a 3% company match. we do quarterly bonuses, up to 10% of your salary in a bonus each quarter. we do life skills training. you can handle the skills of life and work, so you can bring your best self to work. we really value our people. we have worked with young community developers at the bayview store to build -- to fill our vacancies there so we can keep having people come in from the community to work for us. that is jobs. second is wic. i want to say this is not fresh and easy path policy to not accept eas -- easy's policy to not accept wic. we have an application pending for the bayview store. during the start of phase of our business, california has had a

moratorium. the first was put in place in 2009. that went through to the end of 2009. in 2010, they lifted it. that is when we started applying. it is not an even process, and it is a long process. when we were developing our plan to roll out, the state imposed another moratorium last year. there were going to list it at the end of february. they put out an alert that said it was continued. i have all the alerts hear from the california wic program. i feel passionately about this. if we are going to go into underserved neighborhoods, it is something we have to have, which the community wants. it is not our policy to not accept wic. i want to make that clear. when love to partner with schools. we have a shop for schools

program that starts, i think, in september. it runs through the end of the year. all schools within the radius of our stores can register. $1 of every $20 spent goes directly to that school. the parents can support the neighborhood. we have shopping nights. on certain nights, schools give 5% of sales for that night. at the end of the program, the school that has raised the highest amount of money gets an additional $5,000. it has been a very successful program. it created over $2 million last year. we have been talking with cesar chavez school. we are going to adopt them and work with them for field trips and all kinds of things to learn about fresh food. ok. alcohol -- there has been concern about alcohol sales.

we offer assisted checkout. we have people at our front end. it is not self checkout. it is assisted checkout. president fong: that was the bill. i am going to ask you to wrap up. >> we have a very brief video, if you would like to see that. president fong: how many minutes? >> two minutes? >> one or two minutes? president fong: am i allowed to extend this, or can someone from public comment request that? >> as president, you are allowed to extend. president fong: because i think this is an issue about the self checkout and it is maybe a new way of retailing, i would like to let this video roll, if it is a couple minutes long. >> can you turn on this microphone? >> fresh and easy takes the sale

of a call seriously. we work hard to make sure it is only sold to those who can legally buy it. our system does not allow a remote override. employees must interact face to face with all customers buying beer or wine. every time a customer scans and of college beverage, the checkout system alerts an employee and freezes before the transaction can be completed. and employees stationed at the checkouts approaches the customer for a face-to-face interaction to check their id and for signs of intoxication. if the customer appears to be under the age of 40, employees request an id. the employee even scans their unique bar code to enter the customer fifth birthday. -- the customers birthday. it also read and products of

similar size and weight to our call our scammed. this reduces the chance that alcohol can be swapped with another beverage. >> thank you. president fong: thank you. on to public comment, correct? i have a stack of cards, and a couple more. first card is phil lesser. then it is lisa duncan. i will call three in a row. if you want to expedite time, be ready to roll. q up on the side here. -- cue up on the side here. >> the project sponsors came to our general meeting in january. you perhaps have a letter in your file folder indicating that there were almost 40 people at that meeting. what you heard from the project

sponsors, we heard. it was enthusiastically received, and we unanimously endorsed the planning department recommendation for approval. on a personal note, waxing historical, my first business job when i was very young and a student at hawthorne elementary school, which is now cesar chavez, was stuck in between where i lived on the 1300 block of south van ness and where i went to school and helping elderly people -- i thought there were elderly, but they are probably younger than i am now -- load their groceries. it has always been a supermarket. i am sure as long as the oldest resident of the neighborhood can remember, it has always been a supermarket. it is a gaping hole right now and a very important part of the mission.

the renovation sounds fantastic. i congratulate the project sponsors. i hope we have an approval from the commission. thank you very much. president fong: i believe it is lee said duncan. roger wawrinko. >> good afternoon. i am liesel duncan, speaking in opposition. the store is located in the mission of college beverage restricted use some district. the purpose of the subdistrict is to protect the community. specifically, to protect the distribution and selling of an alcoholic beverages. this is of significant concern to the community, and it is embedded in the language of the mission subdistrict ordinance. what is being ignored here is that the same abandon the

license that was used by delano is being transferred to fresh and easy. it is false that they have attacked -- have obtained a new license. it is the old license. because the have obtained the old lessons, they fall under provisions 781.8, which was changed to 249.60, which prohibits the use of a license that has been in disuse for 30 days or longer. that has been ignored because the commission report claims that fresh and easy falls under the exception of a grocery store. that may or may not be true. it is not clear that fresh and easy will meet the parameters prescribed to meet grocery store. regardless, the mission of

college beverage restricted use some district ordinance requires that a license that has fallen into disuse for longer than 30 days may not be transferred over. this was precisely what the commission found in their letter of determination, responding to a grocery outlet on the exact same property. moreover, the license that has been transferred over from delano is a license type 21. this is not for wine and beer only. this is a general off sale license. this has also been ignored. as a result, the community is concerned about the sale of up to hold yourself checkout. they are, as you will hear today, self checkouts. essentially, not only does it not allow for jobs for

individuals who would be working in the store, acting as a cashier, but it also essentially creates a system where alcohol is being sold through vending machines, which is precisely the intent to restrict the subdistrict. the law has been ignored with regard to the provisions i have cited. thank you. president fong: thank you. roger? >> my name is roger marenko. i live literally around the corner from fresh and easy. at one of the meetings a few months ago, they said they would comply with the abc law. at the beginning of this year, they turned around to sue the state of california. that tells me they are not a good neighbor, nor do they want to be a good neighbor. i am not in favor of a store

coming in that does not allow my mother to go in and use her wic coupons, but allows her to buy alcohol. the mission district is bigger than that. i call it the heart of san francisco because of the diversity, the artwork, the stores, the people. we do not want a fresh and easy to be the ultimate result. we do not want our lowest common denominator possible there. as a mission resident for the past 20 years, i think we are better than that and we can do better than that. the mission district demands jobs. the mission district demands jobs where you can organize, where you can unionize. it demands san francisco living wage. we can do better than that. in regards to that huge video we saw a few minutes ago, i myself went to a fresh and easy sight,

and was very easily able to walk away with a call in my hands. being the good neighbor i am, i walked back in and paid for it. one of the times i did that at one of the stores, it took seven or eight minutes. i cannot remember exactly. seven or eight minutes for somebody to come down and check my id. at that point in time, anybody else could have simply walked off, walked away. in conclusion, i am not one to take up more of your time. i want to reiterate that the mission district is better than that. women, infants, and children deserve it. my mother's deserve -- my mother deserves it. with that in mind, thank you. president fong: daniel, gordon, oscar.

>> my name is daniel moosney. i lived adjacent to the proposed property. i and the neighbor. there are actually three different lots there. i was not fully aware that fresh and easy -- the process. i came into knowledge of it through my neighbors. i have an easement through the front, which has been referred to earlier. it is a legal easement. but the family is not honoring it. they think it off. for about a year, i had to go through a neighbor's hallway and climbed through a window into my house. to settle that dispute, the family decided to report me for living in an illegal unit. i am currently removing my

kitchen and my bathroom. i can no longer be living in that unit. as i said, the unit -- the easement is obviously not recorded. i went to city hall and discovered that the whole property -- their property, my property, and others in the neighborhood were at 1.1 property. it used to be allowed for the property owner to not record the easement, but put easements in to save a recording fee. i have had a lot of problems for the last year and a half tried to get into my home. when i started hearing about the fresh and easy people, and started wondering. i do not get along with these neighbors. what kind of tenants are they going to bring in? i live in a multi judge unit building with my family. -- a multi-unit building with my family. the more i looked into it, the

worse it seemed. i found out they made promises at the community meeting that they will abide by alcohol laws, and that are currently in violation. every day, as we sit here and speak, there are people able to buy alcohol in violation of california state law. they are in violation of the wic program. there is a moratorium, but that are not exempt. if fresh and easy said we are planning to go into san francisco, they would have met the exception. but they did not. they are violating that as well. the last portion i have to say is in terms of the mural. i have muralists presently repairing minerals -- the murals that are there. the owners tried to run them off. there was sexual harassment as

well. at a later date, if this were to be continued, i could share that information. >> my name is gordon mar. i worked at an office 2 b will blocks away from the site. i happen to work at a labor union, which is not a coincidence. that reflects some of the progressive values of the mission district. for those reasons as well as many others, i am speaking in opposition to the project, and would like to explain my point about why i feel it is not needed and not appropriate for that site for the mission district. it is mainly because of who tesco, their parent company, really is. they are a global walmart. this is not a target for the mission district.

the idea that has been put forward by the planning department that this site would be continuing as a formula retail use does not have the straight test. and 11-outlet local grocery does technically meet the definition of a formula business, just barely. that is a far cry from an outlet operated by the third largest retailer in the world, tesco. that operate nearly 3000 stores across 14 countries and three continents. it and delano are not remotely the same. the three nearby grocery stores -- foodco, rainbow grocery, and safeway -- are easily within the market area of proposed use. also, the smaller markets wo